When a world-class player leaves a club, the club will try to replace the player with another world-class player. Or at least a player who has the potential to reach the world-class level. Take the case of Barcelona. When Neymar departed, Barcelona used the money to bring Ousmane Dembele to Camp Nou. An excellent player who has the talent to make it to the top-class bracket.
The sources around Camp Nou suggest that Dembele is set to move out of Camp Nou. What happened to the Frenchman? Is it because of his attitude that he features sparingly for Barcelona? Or is it too early to give up on him?
MSN: no doubt this trio is one of the best Barcelona ever had. Replacing a single alphabet in that trio is a mammoth task without a doubt. To be honest, when we take out N and replace it with a D there are always problems associated with it. The new trio may never be as effective as the old but MSD had the potential to be lethal.
How good is he?
When it comes Dembele’s traits, he is a perfect fit for Barcelona. He has the speed, he has that poacher’s eye for a goal and is technically brilliant. Dembele can be lethal in set-pieces as he has scored some pretty good long rangers till date. He is a good dribbler of the ball as well. The area where he lags behind others is in his defensive contribution and Work rate.
At Dortmund, he bagged an excellent tally of goals and assists. 11 goals and 20 assists later, the World started to see him as one of the brightest attacking talents in Europe. Winning the DFB-Pokal and scoring in the final. What an excellent way to grab the headlines?
What went wrong?
Dembele had a promising start to his Barcelona career. Injuries spoiled the party as it hampered his adaptation. After he came back from the injury, it came back again just after four games. Things got tough for the young Frenchman.
Despite the injury lay-off Dembele managed to grab some game time and put in some excellent performances. He finished the season strongly and slowly started to justify his price-tag.
So definitely it is not the problem of talent in the case of Ousmane Dembele. If not what is? It is easily the attitude. At Dortmund, when Barcelona came poaching for him he was eager for the move. He even stopped showing up for training and even went on strike. That’s not an attitude we expect from a professional player.
He just spent one season at Borussia Dortmund and jumped off to Camp Nou. Maybe the move was too early for the lad.
The attitude problems had surfaced in the French camp as well. Deschamps even opened up about it many times. An advice to talent: Keep your heads down and don’t be another talent who got wasted due to attitude issues.
The case of this season
This season, the trio Valverde prefers is the Messi Suarez Coutinho in the attack. With Arthur exceeding expectations Coutinho takes his place in the wing and makes space for Arthur. Minutes have been hard to come by for Dembele. Even in his latest performance against Cultural Leonesa, he was way below par.
Even with Messi out injured Dembele has not cemented his place in the line-up. The issue again surfaces as an attitude problem and it cannot be tolerated in the high level of football.
Where to Next?
At just 21, some may think it is too early to give up him. The attitude problems aside, he will be an excellent addition to any team. Too many transfers in such a young age can affect the professional portfolio of a player. So the question is can Dembele get rid of his attitude issues? If so he is a legend in the making. An integral part of the Golden generation for France.
